Promoting your podcasts and shows is most likely on the top of the list when it comes to producing your new media projects. In this episode of Talkshoe Support LIVE!, we will discuss some techniques that you may or may not have thought about.

Here are some ideas that will be discussed during this episode:

Podcast promotion should be approached with the same tactics as website promotion. Identifying and informing your audience will increase communication and dialogue. Podcasting is a great new medium, but creating a podcast is only half of the work. Promoting a podcast is equally critical to it’s success.

1. Educate the Public.
It is important to remember that podcasting is a relatively new technology and not everyone understands or knows what podcasting is. It is particularly important to educate users if your audience is not technical. Not only is it important to explain what a podcast is, but it is equally important to explain how your podcast will help listeners. Instruction on how users can listen to podcasts should also be included.

2. Graphic
Add a graphic to your website to let website visitors know that a podcast is available for your content. Colorful graphics have become the signature to alert listeners that podcasts and RSS feeds are available. The podcast flags were initially bright orange rectangles but as the popularity has grown, webmasters have bent the rules a bit.

A free online RSS graphic tool is available that allows users to quickly customize buttons by selecting the text and the color scheme of the button enabling webmasters to coordinate their podcast flag to match their website color scheme. Graphics experience is not required. Simply select alternative colors and insert text to personalize the feed graphics.

Online Graphics Tool – http://www.feedforall.com/public/rss-graphic-tool.htm or choose ready made graphics from: http://www.feedforall.com/podcasting-graphics.htm .

3. Descriptive Content
Be sure the podcast RSS feed contains enough information related to the contents of the podcasts to grab the interest of listeners. The description should be keyword rich. A link to the audio file should be included in the description field. The audio file link is a great way for listeners to sample a podcast.

4. Press Release
Send a press release about the podcast. In addition to distributing the press release to editors, be sure to submit the release to free online press release directories.

5. Podcast Directories
Submit podcasts to the podcast directories. Podcast directories contain podcasts that cover a wide variety of topics. Inclusion in the podcast search engines and directories will tap a whole new audience.

6. Consistent Theme / Interesting Content
The last thing you want to do is to turn off listeners who have subscribed. Provide consistently formatted and consistently themed audio files. Interesting content that is consistently presented will gradually increase your listening base.

7. Create a Community
Encourage feedback and dialogue with listeners. Listen to the feedback of listeners and test their suggestions. Remember the podcast is for them not you.

8. Auto-Discovery
Include auto-discovery tags in the HTML header of the web page. Some podcasting and RSS readers will automatically detect that an RSS feed or podcast is available if such auto-discovery tags are included in the web page header tags.

9. Add A Podcast Icon
Add a standard “podcast” icon to the website. The icon should appear “above the fold”, meaning that the website visitor should not have to scroll down in order to see it. The standardized orange icons are symbolic of podcasts, and podcast listeners will instantly know that a podcast is available when they see such an icon. The icon should link to the URL of the podcast feed.

10. Submit To Podcast Search Engines And Directories
There is a large and growing number of search engines and directories that are specific to podcasting. Submit your podcast to all the podcasting search engines and podcasting directories.

11. Use All Means Available For Promotion
Use all of your existing communication channels to let your audience know that a podcast is available. Be sure to include a mention of the podcast in any email signatures, newsletters, and forum posts.

12. Optimize Transcript
Create a show transcript as part of the RSS feed, and include important keywords from the podcast in the show transcript. The show transcript should be optimized for search engines. Use standard search engine optimization techniques.

13. Optimize ID3 Tags
Use search engine optimization techniques when optimizing your ID3 tags, so your sound files will be easy to locate via the various audio search engines.

If you are spending the time and energy to publish a regular podcast, make sure to give it the exposure it deserves. So, be sure to cover all of your bases!

This is not an all inclusive list by any stretch of the imagination. We will discuss even more ways during the show, so be sure to tune in live or listen to this episode in the player below!

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I have recently updated the LearnToPodcast.com site to a WordPress Self Hosted blog site. I am utilizing a new theme that allows WordPress to act as a landing page site. By using this theme, I will not only get the same results as I would by using a standard landing page, however, I will also get the built-in SEO (search engine optimization) from WordPress and this will enable me to get my site onto the search engines faster and more efficiently.

Check out the new redesign today and let me know what you think! Oh, and if you are looking for a theme like this to create your own landing pages using WordPress, I will have this theme available for purchase soon!

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Learn to use search engine optimization techniques when writing your articles. If hiring a writer to write articles for you, you can choose one who already knows about SEO or you can supply them with a list of keywords and let them know where they should be placed and how many times they should be repeated throughout the article. Optimizing your articles for search engines will help them rank higher when someone searches for a keyword relating to your subject, which means that you will receive more visitors because more people will actually see your URL. It is a fact that most visitors don’t look past the first search engine result page and by the third search engine results page there is practically no audience left for you to promote to. What this means for those on the third or high page is no traffic. This is why it is very important for you to make sure that your articles are prepared in a way that will eventually get them to that first or second search engine results page.

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When choosing an article for your website, make sure that it is a length that is optimal for search engine optimization efforts. Articles that are as short as 200 words or as long as 500 words should fit into this category. Even if search engine optimization is not your goal, it is still a good idea to keep your articles at this length for your reader’s sake. They are likely to not finish your page if it is any longer. This could leave them Kith only half of the information you wanted them to have or leave them with the impression that your site is too “wordy”. Most Internet readers do not read a website page as they would a book, so the shorter the better. Even if this means splitting one long idea into 4 or 5 pages. Be sure to label them so that the reader can pick and choose which part they want to read or so they know what is coming up next to help them determine if they want to continue reading.

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Some webmasters try to use articles from free content directories to get visitors to their site and make some money. This is mostly important for those who have just begun working as an affiliate for several companies and do not yet have any funding, yet need to built small niche websites to visitors to their site so that they can begin making revenue.

Although this can sometimes be the only option for those who are running on a non-existent budget, it is not a way that will effectively build your website or revenue. There are a few potential reasons why this may be detrimental to your business building efforts.

Problem #1 – Search Engines

Search engines will only look down upon your site if it has the exact same duplicated content than other sites. The more sites that share your content, the less it will help you achieve good search engine rankings.

Good search engine rankings are essential in getting visitors to your sit so that they have a chance to click on your affiliate links. If you cannot even get visitors, then will never make an revenue. Working on the search engine optimization of your site so that you will eventually be high enough in the results to get customers, should be priority one.

Problem #2 – Getting visitors to click

Although getting your site high on search engine result pages and acquiring site visitors is hard work, unfortunately this is only half of the battle. You must also be able to convince those visitors to click on your affiliate links. If your visitors see the same content they have seen on a multitude of other sites, they will be least likely to click on your links. This is because most people want to buy things that are recommended by people that they trust or whom they feel like are an expert on the subject.

If your content is just duplicated from other sites, you will be exposed as someone who does not really know what they are talking about and therefore will not look heavily on your product recommendations. This will reduce the number of website visitors who will be willing to click through.

Problem #3 – Author Bylines

Most free content is only given to you if you agree to place the authors byline under the article (you can get into trouble if you try to use it without following the stipulated rules). This poses a problem because most author bylines include links. When a reader gets done reading a really intriguing article, there is a strong possibility that they will click on the author’s byline link rather than your affiliate links. This is the entire reason why these authors offer free content to begin with, so that they may get their name and links out there to the public. Using this type of content may mean shooting yourself in the foot and losing possible profitable website visitors.

Once you put these three problems together, you are looking at a serious decline in revenue simply because you used free website content from article directories. Although it may be the only option for some, if you have the funds to buy your own original content, then you should go this route. If you don’t have the finds, however, you may be better off writing your own content and then hiring professional services once you have made a profit to work with.

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When you are trying to make money with articles, the beauty of it is that you don’t really need previous career related experience and that you can learn the ropes as you go. That being said, there are some skills that you will need to teach yourself or pick up along the way to make your sites successful. You can’t go in not knowing anything, not learning anything, and still expect to make a good income (or any income at all).

First, you will need to know how to pick out the correct articles to make your sites successful. There are many types of content, from free content to high dollar content, and each comes with its own advantages and disadvantages (although high dollar content is more likely to give you a successful site in the end).

Second, you will need to know how to choose keywords that can help you get a good amount of traffic, without being too competitive to get on the first or second page. If you choose highly competitive keywords that are used by large, mammoth website, you are likely to never get up to those much needed first two pages.

Third, you will need to know how to optimize your websites for various search engines. Search engine optimization skills will allow you to get high rankings for your chosen niche keywords, which will help to get visitors and make profit.

Fourth, if you opt for a large website that you will focus most of your internet marketing career on, you will also need to know how to market your website to your intended audience through paid banner ads and text links. If you prefer very small 2-5 page niche sites, then promoting all of them this way will not be cost effective and will eat up more profits than it is worth.

If you can capture some of these skills and attack them aggressively during your first few small websites or the first few months of a larger website, then you will eventually become an expert. Since you can learn the ropes first hand on your own, the only thing that you will need to do before you begin your new career is to read up on how to get started (maybe purchase an internet marketing e-book or two) and make sure that you have the funds available to start a small site.

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When you are trying to make money off of the articles on your website, it is important to effectively promote your site so that you will attract customers and they can see just what a good, quality site you have. There are several ways so market and promote your website, one of them being though banner advertisements.

What Banner Ads Can Do For You

Banner ads can help bring visitors from others sites to your own. Although monthly fees can be expensive to advertise on high traffic sites, in the end it may be cheaper and/or a faster way to start seeing significant revenue from your website efforts, rather than waiting for SEO techniques to bring your own site to the top of search engine results. Aside from paying to advertise on someone else’s site, there are also free banner exchanges to choose from. We will look at the pros and cons of each banner advertising method below.

Free Banner Exchanges

Free banner exchanges are when you and other sites exchange each others banners. Their banner will go on your site and your banner will go one their site. Although this option is free, there are two main problems with it. First, if you want your banner on a significant number of sites, it will mean cluttering your own site up with these banners. This could even shot you in the foot if you run an affiliate website because, instead of clicking on your affiliate links, your visitors may be clicking on your banner exchange links. Secondly, you have to be really careful about the types of sites that you exchange banners with. Some sites like to gather a lot of banners so that they can be a directory or portal site and not have to have any real content. These “banner farms” or “link farms” will do nothing positive for your site and, in the meantime, you will be bringing them potential traffic.

Paid Banner Ads

As we saw above, paid banner ads cost money, but they will eventually pay off if you choose the right ones. You need to ensure that the site produces the amount of traffic that they say and that they have your ad placed in a way that invites visitors to click without being too pushy. You also want to choose a site that does not house too many other banners on the same page as yours or that there are no competitor links on the same page.

All in all, banner ads can end up being profitable for you site if you go about it the right way. If you do decide to check out banner advertisement as a marketing avenue, be sure to keep the above tips in mind.

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This is a question that is asked, most often, by newbies and novices in the New Media arena. Should I program a full web site or should I just setup a blog site, I really think I need both! Well, to answer that question, here are a few things to consider:

In order to setup a full HTML based web site, you will need to know how to program in HTML or have an HTML Editor and know how to use that or even hire a programmer. Learning HTML is not hard to do, it just takes time, like most anything that is worth doing. Hiring a programmer could cost you by the hour or flat rate, however, you are still talking out of pocket expenses for maintenance, changes, etc. Doing a full web site also will require a little creativity on your part. With site layout, design, content and graphics, you will have a lot on your plate to think about, even with hiring a programmer, as they will need guidance and direction while programming your site.

Setting up a blog, especially today, is relatively easy to do and fairly quick to do. Even someone with a little imagination can setup a blog site and make it look great and functional. There are a number of platforms you can use such as WordPress, Drupal, Typepad and Blogger. Depending on how much time and effort you want to spend on your blog site, along with what functionality you want, will dictate which platform you choose. Out of all of the platforms available, WordPress seems to be the number one choice for most new bloggers. It is easy to use, easy to setup, offers a variety of themes and plugins and of course, is free! WordPress offers a hosted blog site where they take care of the hosting of your blog, the bandwidth, everything. All you do, is set it up and start blogging. For most beginners, this is a great starting point, so that you can keep everything free and don’t have to worry about paying for a host each month or year, domain name, and the like.

For those that have there own domain name and hosting plans, WordPress offers a self hosted version of their platform that allows for even more expandability and functionality. The self hosted version is just like the hosted version, except you have the entire script on your own hosted server and you take care of setting it up, hosting it, bandwidth, etc. With the self hosted version, you can add as many themes and plugins as you like to make your blog site like a blog or even like a web site!

Ok, consider this, you want a web site that will give you the freedom to “make it your own” and you also want a blog so that you can keep your visitors, clients, customers, whoever, up to date easily with the happenings of your business, podcast or even your life! Right? The web site will take time to get off the ground because of having to be “built”, programmed, designed, approved (by you, of course) and then sent out to the search engines, promoted…you get the idea I think. Now, take WordPress, add a custom theme that you pick out from the hundreds available to you, add the right plugins to give you the interaction and functionality you are looking for, add your own flare for graphics, fonts, etc., add separate pages for “departments” or areas of your podcast or business, point your domain name to your WordPress site (if you have one) and then let WordPress do the SEO (search engine optimization) for you as it silently sends your new blog site out to the search engines, while you promote your new site and start sending people to it yourself.

WordPress lets you do all of the design and customization, posting, management, etc. from a dashboard page. It’s layout will let even the beginner to use WordPress to get started right away. Even if you don’t have a creative bone in your body, I’ll bet you will be able to find a ready built theme that will make your blog site come to life and you can start using the site instead of fretting over design specs, programming fees and the like.

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